Thanks to 41 Aeronca's post on his Lyman GPR kit, I decided that the cheekpiece on my investarms hawken was not quite what I wanted, and that I really liked the inlay on his GPR, so I decided to give it a shot. I delineated the cheekpiece a second time, giving it a nice flow into the stock, and rasped & sanded it flatter to fit me better. Then with the inlay. I found a piece of 3" x 1" x 1/32" brass plate and made a 4-point star pattern and glued it on. Rough cut with snips and finished with files and it cane out perfect. Was kind of nervous cutting into the cheekpiece to inlet the thing, but figured it was necessary practive and if I screwed up I could rasp & sand the cheekpiece again. Actually, I did a pretty good job and the inlay fit perfectly. My plan was to glue the brass in place with 30-minute epoxy and use 3, 1/2" brass escutcheon pins longitudinally to secure the inlay. I marked and drilled pilot holes in the bras and about 1/4" down into the wood. Then I screwed up. I put the epoxy in place and set the inlay. I tapped the middle brad in plach with a tack hammer & 1/4' dowel. No problem. Then I put in the end pins and they caused the lond ends of the inlay to pop up when I set them fully. I tried to work the tips back in plave but it was no go. Luckily, my 30-minute epoxy takes a hell of a lot longer than 30 minutes to set up hard, so I poured myself a couple fingers of Maker's Mark and thought about it. I wound up grinding the brad heads off with my dremel tool and I popped the inlay right out and cleaned up the epoxy as best I could. I couldn;t get any purchase on the exposed brad shanks, so I used a punch to drive them down and in about 1/8". I flattened the brass and curved the tips in to fit (again), mixed up a new batch of epoxy, and set the inlay in place with a couple small c-clamps holding it snugly in place. Next morning it was secure, but the brass looked like hell after the ordeal it had been through. I had inlet it below flush, so I started working the cheekpiece with 60 grit, then 100 grit, then 150. It came out nice & shiny and flush. Now the only thing is that I still have 3 holes in the inlay, and I can't drive in new brads b/c of the shanks that are under the holes. My plan is to carefully clean out the drill holes with the appropriate bit and cut some shot brads. Then I can use a sewing pin to put a little epoxy in the holes and set the mini-brads.
All in all, a great learning experience, and now I know what NOT to do.
DJL
All in all, a great learning experience, and now I know what NOT to do.
DJL
